Elevator Accident Leaves One Dead

The scene outside of 285 Madison Avenue on Wednesday after a woman died in an elevator accident.

A 41-year-old worker at an advertising company was killed Wednesday morning when an elevator in an office building in Midtown Manhattan began moving as she was stepping inside.

Police said the woman, Young & Rubicam employee Suzanne Hart, was boarding the elevator on the ground floor of 285 Madison Avenue when it moved up suddenly, crushing her. The elevator went up two floors, stopped and then plummeted back down, police said.

Hart’s body became trapped between the first and second floors and remained lodged inside the elevator shaft, a spokesman for the Fire Department said. Two other people were injured.

City building inspectors are investigating the cause of the accident and have issued a cease-use order for the elevator, the Department of Buildings said Wednesday.

John Hanna, the manager of the Riflessi clothing store inside the building, had been opening the store when the accident occurred. “We heard banging and screaming,” he said. “People came out and were saying a lady got crushed in the elevator.”

The two people injured in the accident were taken to New York University Hospital. Their names have not yet been released.

A call reporting the elevator accident was made around 10 a.m. Wednesday, police and fire officials said. Fire officials initially said the elevator had fallen and crashed.

Transel Elevator Inc., based in Manhattan, is listed in Department of Buildings records as the company that services the 13 elevators inside 285 Madison Avenue. Robert Pitney, director of Transel, confirmed that his company maintains elevators there.

“Our information is scant,” he said in a phone interview. “It would be premature to make any comment other than we recognize this as tragic incident and our hearts go out to those involved.”

The elevator was most recently inspected in June, and had no safety issues that would relate to Wednesday’s accident, a buildings department spokeswoman said. According to the DOB, the elevator last recorded a hazardous violation in 2003, and the condition was corrected. The building’s other elevators have not presented safety hazards, according to records.

Young & Rubicam, now a division of advertising giant WPP PLC, owns 285 Madison Avenue and has been a presence in the building since its founding in 1926. The office tower is also home to other advertising firms owned by WPP, including Blast Radius, K&L, BrandBuzz, Bravo, KBM Group and VML.

Y&R chief executive Peter Stringham said the company is “deeply, deeply saddened to confirm that one of our employees has died” and called the accident “a great emotional shock” in a statement put out Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier this month, Young & Rubicam announced plans to move its offices to 3 Columbus Circle, where they agreed to take 340,000 square feet of space.

Patrick Carrajat, an elevator-safety consultant and founder of an elevator museum in Queens, said deaths caused by an elevator moving while a passenger is entering are extremely rare. “For someone to be killed is almost beyond comprehension,” he said in an interview.

Two redundant elevator systems are designed to prevent a car from moving with the door open, and Carrajat noted that a malfunction like this “is unheard of.”

“This is going to be a major case against the elevator [servicing] company, for sure,” said Carrajat, who sometimes serves as an expert witness in elevator-related lawsuits. “It is extraordinary, this kind of failure.”